BY ANA RADELAT
 Special to The Herald

 WASHINGTON -- Sen. Connie Mack of Florida commemorated the fourth
 anniversary of the shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes with a new
 effort to move a bill that would help the victims' families collect on a $187.6 million
 judgment against Fidel Castro's government.

 The Republican senator co-sponsored the ``Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act''
 with Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.

 CHALLENGES PRESIDENT

 The bill would strip the president of authority to protect frozen foreign assets in
 the United States. Under the Mack-Lautenberg bill, only diplomatic facilities and
 funds to run those missions would be protected.

 The senators hope to help the families of three Brothers to the Rescue fliers killed
 in the Florida Straits by the Cuban air force on Feb. 24, 1996, and other victims of
 terrorism to collect court judgments against nations found guilty of terrorist acts.

 However, because of the crunch of business Thursday, the Senate Judiciary
 Committee put off consideration of the legislation for another day.

 Undeterred, Mack took to the Senate floor to accuse the White House of a lack of
 commitment to helping terrorism victims.

 BLOCKED SEIZURE

 Citing national security and diplomatic concerns, the Clinton administration has
 strongly opposed the Mack-Lautenberg bill. Moreover, the administration
 successfully objected when a Florida court attempted to satisfy part of Brothers
 to the Rescue's $187.6 million judgment by attaching U.S. telecommunications
 payments to the Cuban telephone company.

 ``When the president and his administration give assurances and advice, and
 American families trust and obey this advice only to be dragged along and let
 down, the administration commits a great injustice,'' Mack said.

 The four South Florida residents who were killed in the Brothers to the Rescue
 shoot-down were Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Pena and Pablo
 Morales. Because Morales was not a U.S. citizen, his family was not eligible to
 share in the court's award.

 Lautenberg is involved in the anti-terrorism effort on behalf of the family of Alisa
 Flatow, a New Jersey woman who was killed in a 1995 bombing attributed to
 Iranian-backed terrorists. Flatow's family won a $247.5 million court judgment
 against Iran. The wives of former hostages David Jacobsen, Joseph Cicippio and
 Frank Reed have also won a court judgment, in the amount of $65 million, against
 Iran.

 More recently, former hostage and Associated Press correspondent Terry
 Anderson has sued the Iranian government for $100 million for its involvement in
 his 1985 capture in Lebanon.

 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently said she is prepared to help
 terrorism victims identify Iranian assets in the United States that could be used to
 pay court-ordered damages. But a State Department spokesman said Thursday
 that ``the administration has determined it's not in our national interest to go after
 Cuban assets in the United States.''

 Nonetheless, a senior State Department official said the administration extended
 its ``deepest sympathy . . . to the families [of the Brothers to the Rescue pilots]
 whose lives were cut short by the Cuban government's capricious and unlawful
 conduct.''